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Mother Charged With Feeding Her Son Methadone Given Six-Year Sentence

A mother who killed her son by feeding him methadone to make him sleep has been jailed for six years. Kelly Emery, 34, gave two-year-old Fenton Hogan the heroin substitute to "knock him out" while she took cocaine. Emery, of Cotswold Close, Frankley, Birmingham, had denied administering the substance but was found guilty of manslaughter at Nottingham Crown Court.

The jury cleared her of a separate charge of cruelty to a person under the age of 16. The trial heard Emery gave the heroin substitute to Fenton on at least three occasions before his death in July 2013. Jerry Hayes, defending, said Emery loved her son and would not have done anything to harm him. She admitted manslaughter by gross negligence but the jury concluded she deliberately gave the drug to him and so was guilty of the more serious charge.

Daily Routine

Jurors were told Fenton was pronounced dead after being taken to hospital from Emery's former home. Speaking after the sentence, Det Insp Bob Sutton said the toddler "should have had the rest of his live to look forward to. Instead his short life was taken by the actions of his mother, who should have been there to safeguard and protect him," he said.

Det Insp Sutton said Emery's daily routine "revolved around the consumption of drugs."

"Fenton's extended family agrees that no sentence is sufficient or will help to heal what happened to Fenton. The impact of Kelly's actions will remain with all of the family forever," he added.

I may be alone on my take on this, but even the BBC--which I trust implicitly--seems to do a bad job of bringing all the pertinent facts to the table in stories like these.

Where is the proof that the woman did anything? Did she admit to giving her son methadone? No. Were there witnesses to the fact that she "lived to take drugs" and may or did administer methadone to the child? The coverage suggests not.

And I put this story up for that very reason. Where's the Beef? as the old lady on Burger King commercials used to say?

It appears that in most EU news stories about people getting busted the covering news services' lack of necessary details leave me wondering about the real truth just about every time. And to me, what's left out is what scares me the most and makes me wonder if those charged are truly guilty in the first place.

It implies that mom had an active addiction perhaps to polypharmacy.
It would seem that while sick and struggling mom didn't have the ability
To care for an active little one and poor judgement made for a tragedy.
She will live with this for the rest of her life. There are people today I am sure that give their kids
Cold medicine so they can party. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

She needs treatment/ intensive and lengthy. How can we judge this person without knowing all the demons she lived with, lack of support system and concrete facts of the case.

I think you misunderstood my point, Staggered. The child had methadone in his system (I'm supposing since there are charges against his mom), but the mother implicitly claims she did not give the methadone to her son. Is there proof she did, and that the child took the pill himself, or that someone else all together had? There's no telling what her real defense was because it's not mentioned even once in this story.

I covered news all my life and I have come across hundreds of stories just like this, drug-related stories in which it is never quite clear what libelous information, if any, they have on the individuals being charged with drug-related crimes. Of course this heinous act is all the more hideous since we are talking about the alleged guilt of a mother who may or may be guilty of intentionally feeding her child a dangerous substance so she could "do coke" all night.

If there is evidence against her, why is the weight of that evidenced not mentioned in the news coverage? That is my point here. All the quotes about her guilt are made by cops and by the baby's "extended family," which, I assume, refers to the baby's father's kin. What is it they all know that is missing here in print? Is there reason to accuse her or is this just another case of blaming the handiest person present?

If she is guilty, hang her to the letter of the law; if she claims she is not, let's know what they're basing her guilt on other than the flimsy evidence they've mentioned here. Re-read the story carefully. Doesn't it raise questions about what's missing from the tale more than it answers much of anything with the lack of facts they've bothered to include?